


Shines Bright like the Stars

by athiker10



Category: Supernatural
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-15
Updated: 2012-07-15
Packaged: 2017-11-09 23:47:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,515
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/459849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athiker10/pseuds/athiker10
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Balthazar usually doesn't pay attention to prayers meant for his Father's but a little girl's prayers won't leave him alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shines Bright like the Stars

**Author's Note:**

> Instead of Bill Harvelle dying when Jo was 10, I made it significantly earlier because in the context of this story and what I'd already written when I looked up Jo's bio, it makes more sense. I hope you'll forgive the time discrepancy.

_Dear God, Can you please bring Daddy back home safe?_

_Thank you in advance._

 

_Dear God, Please let Mommy stop making me clean the bar up._

_Thank you in advance._

 

_Dear God, Please, please, please, bring Daddy back! I miss him. If you can’t bring him back, please make sure he’s happy in Heaven. I want him to be happy in heaven._

_Thank you God._

 

Balthazar usually paid no mind to the prayers to God. He had enough of his own prayers to ignore, thank you very much. He had orgies to take part in on top of the jobs Raphael, the bastard, foisted off on him. The apocalypse was coming in another couple decades after all. There was something in the tiny little voice that brushed against his Grace on their way to the Host. Made it move, reach out. He promptly gathered his Grace back, ignoring the little voice.

 

After a year of these ridiculous prayers, he finally gave in. He needed to see this little girl, maybe seeing her would explain why her prayers were pulling at his Grace. He didn’t answer little girl prayers. They were mindless and annoying. Human young were so.. Tedious. Father’s created beings of all sorts had to go through a maturation period and Balthazar found it rather boring. Adults were at least a smidgeon more interesting. So he convinced his host to take him in, condemning the man to a drooling mess when he wasn’t occupying the body (of course, he didn’t mention that part, the man was rather devout after all) and flew himself to Nebraska outside of a dungheap. He blinked. It looked very nearly abandoned. And it was home to a little girl?

 

He didn’t know much about human young, but it seemed rather like an inappropriate place to raise a child. Weren’t they supposed to have a two story house with a white picket fence and a dog yapping noisily in the yard? Whatever. It wasn’t like he had to stay here long. Once he got a peak at this little girl, he would take himself off to the festival in India he’d invited himself to. Angelic life wasn’t life after all, without a good party.

 

He pushed the door open-something told him the folks inside wouldn’t take kindly towards his appearing out of thin air. He would not actually appear out of thin air, but their feeble little brains couldn’t process it as anything else. The stench of old alcohol, piss and stale cigarette smoke infiltrated his vessel’s nose and he wrinkled it as he sauntered to the bar, sliding easily onto the worn, cracked vinyl.

 

“What can I do you for?” The middle aged woman, perhaps a few years older than his vessel, had eyes that were dead. She had life, but. Well. He pulled his grace back. This must be the little girl’s mother. All that grief swirling around. She had a strong soul, but-wait. Balthazar did not empathize with lowly humans. They were there for entertainment. “A glass of your best scotch would be most generous,” Balthazar smiled, letting an inkling of his grace shine through, dazzling the woman a bit. Perhaps it was wrong to flirt with a little girl’s mother, a woman who had lost her husband so recently. But he wouldn’t be Balthazar if he didn’t. The woman barely looked fazed and he leaned back, sweeping the room in a glance, noting the worn down hunters-they had no idea there was an angel in the room. He smirked.

 

A rather plain tumbler slid across the scratched varnish of the bar, filled with a couple fingers of amber liquid. He picked it up idly, sniffing it, as one would with wine. “Is it to your preference, sir?” Sarcasm rolled heavily off the woman’s tongue. Ellen, his Grace belatedly informed him.

 

“Perfect, Madam,” He sipped some of the liquid. It was not the best Scotch, but you wouldn’t find that in rural Nebraska after all.

 

“Mommy?” Balthazar stiffened. There was the voice. He leaned forward, his Grace warming and unfurling, reaching out, out towards the tiny little human.

 

“Joanna Beth, what are you doing out here? Gary’s supposed to be watching over you and Ash.” The woman had a dishrag in one hand and the other resting on her hip. “I wanted to say my prayers with you, Mommy.” A soft sigh. Balthazar took a sip of his scotch, trying to pull his Grace back within him. She was a tiny little girl and he had no right to inflict power such as his Grace on her.

 

“Well, alright.” The dishrag flew the air into a bin on the other end of the bar. “Fred, this place isn’t exactly and I mean, exactly, as I left it when I get back, you’re going to be in deep shit.” Ellen had turned her head, talking to the heavily bearded man-he became a hunter decades ago, when his cousin that he’d grown up with had been killed by a Wendigo. It’d been so long that the thirst for revenge had faded and now, now it was all he knew anymore. He didn’t know how to get out. There was nowhere to go.

 

“Who are you?” The little girl was speaking to him. He barely caught his Grace in time. He leaned over the counter, meeting her solemn gaze and grinned, pretending to be delighted even as he wished her were as far away as he could get from here.

 

“I’m Balthazar. Who are you?”

 

“Jo. She’s my mom.” She jerked her tiny thumb up at the woman he’d been…talking to.

 

“So I figured.”  

 

“You’re not a hunter,” Jo said.

 

“Come on, Jo, stop bothering the man. Let’s get you back to bed.” Ellen laid a hand on her small daughter's shoulder.

 

“Nope,” Balthazar said with a smile at the girl. “Definitely not a hunter.” Shifted his gaze to the mom, waggling his eyebrows. “More of a lover, many would say.” The woman rolled her eyes and gently guided her daughter out of the bar. She’d heard enough pick up lines to discern which to respond negatively to and which to ignore. It had been like that…. Balthazar kicked himself. Well, mentally. He didn’t really do self harm. Beneath him and all. He did hate how Dad had gifted him with seeing into people’s souls and memories. Not the little details, his Dad hadn’t been that cruel. But still. Joanna Beth Harvelle. His Grace wanted to know more about her and for the life of him, he had no idea why. He swallowed down the rest of his scotch and popped himself out, belatedly wiping Fred’s memory of how he’d left.

 

The next time Joanna Beth Harvelle or Jo as he’d started calling her-God, he was such a twat for giving a tiny human a nickname-prayed, Balthazar nearly dropped his joint. He’d thought seeing the girl would satisfy his Grace’s reaction to this one human. Apparently, he had the capability of being wrong. He let it go for a year or two. Until it became too much again and he popped himself back to that filthy bar in the middle of nowhere. The girl didn’t pray endlessly, but she prayed often and every time, every time, he heard every word. He still didn’t know why. He’d rather grown liking to hear her prayers, though. They were different every time. Instead of repeated requests for Addie the little girl with the dark blue eyes who was the most popular girl in school to be friends with her (he heard those a lot from little girls, which in general, was why he tuned them out), Jo asked for her father to be happy in heaven, for her mom to start smiling again-and here’s where she surprised him-for herself to learn how to be a hunter. The last one was when his (rather small) self-control broke and he swooped down again to visit the Roadhouse.

 

Balthazar found he rather liked his English rocker look. Deadbeat the man might have been, but he did have a certain sense of style. The moment he walked in, all he could hear was the godawful noise of REO speedwagon. Yowling. He sat in the same place as before, noting the new scratches on the varnished wood and the new lines on Ellen’s face. There was a slender pre-teen there too, blonde hair hanging around her shoulders as she poured out a scotch and shoved it in front of him.

 

“Aren’t you a bit young to be serving alcohol?”

 

“Are you the law?”

 

“Not in ways you could ever comprehend.”

 

“Are you going to report me?”

 

“Too much trouble,” Balthazar said honestly, sipping at his scotch. Same crud as last time, but at least it was better than some of the swill he’d been forced to taste in the centuries since scotch had (thank Father) been invented. “How’d you know I wanted scotch anyways?” He asked after a moment.

 

“You had it last time and you don’t look like the type to change it up.”

 

“You were what, six? How could you possibly remember I was here?”

 

“Eight and I remember faces. Especially not-hunters who give off hunter vibes.” He gave off hunter vibes. Interesting. The short blonde leaned against the counter, her body just barely starting to transition into womanhood. Maturation in humans. Such a dull thing. Couldn’t just snap into adulthood. Losing years of fun that way. “So. What brings you back looking as if you haven’t aged?”

 

“Let’s just say I heard whispers that you wanted to learn how to hunt.” She reared back, hand out to keep space between them, even as she hit the other end of the bar.

 

“I haven’t told anyone about that.”

 

“I have ways.” Balthazar said with a shrug and sipped again at his scotch. It got better the more he sipped.

 

“What are you? Demon?” Balthazar barked a laugh before dissolving into little giggles.

 

“Demon. Me. You’re too funny,” he gasped. He set his scotch down and slapped his other hand down on the bar. It was probably a good thing there was no one else in the bar at the moment and he’d found a way to keep Ellen occupied out back. It shouldn’t have surprised him, the holy water, but it did. He blinked, clearing his eyes as he stared at the young woman. “Told you,” he said, drying his face with another blink. She lashed out with a knife, he caught her at the wrist, loosening her grip. “You really don’t know how to handle that thing. I can teach you.”

 

“Stay away from me you.. You beast!” The girl was quivering in rage and Balthazar smiled. He liked the girl’s spunk. “You can’t hurt me, Jo. And I swear on my Father I won’t hurt you. I couldn’t.” He added, wondering at the truth in his voice. He took the knife and sliced across his hand, showing his rather not impressive non reaction to the silver plated knife. It was just a metal after all.

 

“Wh-What are you?” She asked, eyes wide, the fight gone from her stance.

 

“Your enemy’s worst nightmare,” he says honestly. “Now, do you want knife lessons or not?"  

 

The visits become a regular thing. He pops in every couple months, shows her how to defend herself, how to spot certain creatures. She never stops asking what he is, but when he evades the answer, she doesn’t press. He likes that about her. Curious, but she knows when to shut up. Sometimes, at least. In certain situations. He still hears her prayers though they’re few and far between now. She’s growing out of that phase and he finds that he misses her voice rushing over his Grace. Perhaps it’s why he visits so often, tucking himself into his human vessel (his real form was, perhaps, if comparisons could be made, the size of Manhattan. Or perhaps just the World Trade Center towers.) and visiting the rundown dung heap that was the roadhouse.

 

Ellen doesn’t see him too much, she’d be suspicious of him, spending time with a teen, but it’s not like that. Not really. He always comes when she’s out and uses his Grace to convince her to stay out longer. Jo questions it once, but he raises his eyebrows and changes the subject, really not wanting to get into it with her. He wouldn’t hurt her, not ever. That was the truth even if he still didn’t know why. When she’s sixteen, Jo asks if he’ll take her away from the Roadhouse and he hates himself a bit as her eyes fall, dulling and her expression darkening when he says no.

 

He sighs and excuses himself. He can’t see her so upset. The visits slow after that and he finds himself at loose ends, his Grace reaching, pulling him back. It’s only at his worst moments that he pops himself in, taking care to never appear where anyone who might recognize him can see. He still teaches her, but there’s something in her eyes, something that keeps their _friendship_ from being what it once was. She wants to leave and he hadn’t let her.

 

Humans, he wrinkles his nose. She didn’t need him to leave the roadhouse. She wanted someone to hate when the high of getting away from her mother had worn off. He would not be that. Couldn’t be, didn’t want to be. He was pathetic. Caring what a human thought of him. Ridiculous. But there it was. He didn’t say it though, didn’t want her thinking he would give what he couldn’t. He was an angel and she was a human who wasn’t even fully an adult. She stopped praying when she met the Winchesters, when she found out exactly how her father had died. Stopped believing in God. Balthazar wished he could prove her wrong, but part of him wondered if his father was still around or if he was off gallivanting on Gallifrey or somewhere, never to return to Earth.

 

He was just Balthazar. If his Father didn’t feel like sticking around, he wasn’t about to hold them responsible. He was an angel among thousands, nothing important. He visited less and part of him whispered that it was because she’d graduated to full hunter, that she’d see him as something to hunt and he couldn’t stand to have her look at him that way. So he watched from a distance as she partnered with other hunters or set off on her own. She was good, one of the best. His Grace never stopped reaching out, trying to curl around her, protect her when he couldn’t. He started watching those she knew too, wanting to protect her in any way he could. When Castiel travelled with the Winchester boys, he almost breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Until War caught his Jo’s attention. He couldn’t stop it, he knew, as he watched the demon-Meg she called herself-set the Hellhounds and Jo tried to save Dean and had her side ripped open-poetic, he allowed himself. Like father, like daughter. He caught her and Ellen’s souls as they flew to heaven, so that when she gained after-life consciousness, she wasn’t in her human-created heaven. No, she (and her mother) woke in his personal corner of heaven.

 

“What-where am I?” She yelled, bolting out of the bed, out of the sumptuous bedroom to the wood paneled english tea room he’d drawn up out of amusement.

 

“Isn’t it obvious?” he drawled, as he watched her, trembling in-fear? Rage? He never could tell.

 

“Balth?” her voice quiet, eyes wide. “I-Where have you been? I missed you. I haven’t seen you in three years.” She took steps forward, stopped, frowning and he sighed. It always did take a few moments for memories to catch up with them. It did have to be fast here, where she wasn’t in her own favorite memories. Or perhaps..

 

“You have questions.” He curled his hand around a glass of the best Scotch known to human (and angel) kind. It was nice to finally be able to do that around her without worrying about her trying to kill him.

 

“I died.” Jo was frowning, running her hands over arms before walking around the sofa bed and taking in the room. “Why am I talking to you?”

 

“Because, for me, death is…not exactly an impediment.” He sipped at his scotch, studying the young woman. “For what it’s worth, I am sorry for how you died. It looked rather gruesome.”

 

“It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but I imagine most hunter deaths aren’t.” Jo shrugged and Balthazar smiled. That was his girl, calm even when dead.

 

“That is true,” he admitted. “So…” Jo trailed a hand along the mantel, elegant fingers contrasting against the dark smooth wood. “Can I finally ask the question?”

 

“You may,” Balthazar said with a nod, his Grace clenching tightly even as it tried to slip through him, reaching out to the soul in front of him. “Wha-Who are you?”

 

“My name is Balthazar.” He shifted, wondering at his discomfort. “And I am an Angel of the Lord.” He wrinkled his nose. “And I sound like a smarmy Git. Castiel is rubbing off on me.” She looked at him solemnly for a moment and he shrugged. “I’m not an Archangel at least.”

 

She trailed closer and he crossed his arms, almost uncomfortable with the silence. Her hand reached up, touching his face and he turned his head, letting her fingers caress his grace-his human presentation was simply that, the easiest way for Jo to see him. “That does explain a lot.”

 

“Like what?”

 

“How you weren’t human, but I could never find a sign of what you could possibly be. And I _looked_.” He blinked. Jo was resourceful but he hadn’t realized she’d been able to hide things from her. Humans who were capable of that were so rare.

 

“Well, I believe it’s time I was off. There’s an apocalypse if you hadn’t heard-“

 

“Balthazar,” Jo said and he stopped moving.

 

“What, my dear?”

 

“Is this your.. Home?”

 

“Ah, this is the part of heaven I prefer to reside in. Stay as long as you like, but don’t push the boundaries or it might take me ages to find you again.” Jo shrugged.

 

“Where’s mom?” She finally asked.

 

“In the second room, she probably hasn’t recovered from dying yet.” He wondered what had gotten into him, taking both of their souls. His Grace was straining towards Jo Harvelle’s soul, wanting.

 

“Ok. Balth?”

 

“Yes?”

 

“Can I stay here a while?”

 

“As long as you like.”

 

“Forever?” He couldn’t figure out why she was looking at him like that.

 

“If you wish it.” He made a little bow.

 

“Now-“

 

“Wait!” The panicked voice stopped him in his tracks. Again. “Why me?” He couldn’t even pretend ignorance and he slumped a little.

 

“I-I’m not sure.” Her face fell slightly and he felt his grace tug particularly strongly. “But, ah. Do you remember when you were a little girl and you prayed to my Father?” She frowned.

 

And even frowning, her soul was this bright beautiful thing. “Sort of.”

 

“Well, I, ah, I don’t know why, but your prayers came to me.” Balthazar stepped forward uncertainly. “And my Grace, it is rather incorrigible. And it reaches for you.” Jo smiled and he found himself smiling back, even as he found himself bewildered.

 

“Me too, Balth.”

 

“You too, what?” he said finally.

 

“Never mind. Mom and I’ll be here when you get back from wherever you need to angel off to.” Jo leaned over and traced a hand over his chest and kissed his cheek-or the approximation of such. His Grace pulled and pushed, resting against Jo’s soul and he closed his eyes at the joy it caused.

 

“Yes, well, I have many important things to do. Such as convince Castiel that he is, in fact, in love with Dean Winchester. I shall return promptly.” He grinned, letting his Grace leak through and Jo smiled back at him. That was how it went for a while, pure joy as he spent time with Jo (and, perhaps unfortunately, her mother) in his corner of heaven until he stole all of heaven’s holy objects and absconded with them, tucking Jo’s soul against his as he travelled around, letting Ellen find her way to her own heaven with Bill.

 

She was with him when he sailed on the Titanic and she was with him when Castiel betrayed him and stabbed him and killed him, his grace spilling out of his vessel, burning his wings to ash, her screaming echoing in his ears as he fell from heaven and earth into purgatory. Jo followed him there (although, honestly, she could leave any time she wanted, as Osiris pulling her out to speak to Dean had proved) and he found small comfort in that, wrapping his Grace around her soul and pulling the fragmented bits back together. It was a small joy, but it was all he had in this world of dead monsters.


End file.
